telephone sales skills are you asking

Telephone sales skills can be used to assess your sales introduction and make sure you're not annoying your prospects with a question that can stop you being successful.Many telesales people and appointment makers ask their prospects the question: How are you today, during the introduction stage of their call. Recently I received 3 sales calls where the caller asked me this question and it made me look at my own sales team's cold calls and make some changes.I am usually polite when I receive sales telephone calls. Years ago I use to do their job so I know how hard it is. I also want to see if there is anything I can learn from the calls so I tend to answer as if it was a role play in a saes training session. But on the third call I received, when I was again asked, 'how are you today', I had a natural reaction and responded as a real prospect instead of a sales manager acting out a role play. On the third call I responded with, 'Why are you asking me that, do you know me.'This was a natural response made without thinking. It was a reaction to the question I had been asked. The caller had lost any chance of success at this very early stage of the call. This made me wonder how this question made real prospects feel and should my sales teams use it on their calls. So let's look at the positives and negatives of using the question: How are you today.The negatives The prospect may think you are being false. You don't know them and they don't know you, so why would you be cold calling a complete stranger and 3 lines into the call asking them about their health and well being? Asking,' How are you', on a cold call could lose you any chance of making a sale or setting an appointment.The prospect may become impatient. Many people receiving a cold call will want you to get to the point and give them your reason for calling. Then they can decide if there are potential benefits for them if they listen to you.The question is not connecting you with the prospect. In my telephone sales skills training sessions I emphasise the importance of the introduction stage when cold calling. This is when the prospect is searching for points of reference. Their mind is trying to make connections. They take in and understand information by connecting what they don't know to things that they do know. A question about their health does not give them any points of reference and makes the communication of information difficult.The positives They could think that you actually care. You are showing the prospect that you care about their well being, but only if you can make it sound genuine. It can be a sign that your relationship with the prospect is growing. It is good manners and something we ask an acquaintance or a friend, or a business contact we have a relationship with.If the prospect answers you it can break the ice and help build rapport. But remember, they could start giving you a long story about their illnesses and problems.My conclusion Having effective telephone sales skills means you can make decisions about what to include in all the stages of your telesales and sales appointment calls. If I was deciding on whether to ask a prospect how they are, I would not use it when building a cold call script as I could lose the sale at the introduction stage. I would use it when phoning existing customers or prospects that I have spoken with before. If phoning to different parts of the world I would try to discover if asking this question is considered usual business practice or good manners in that particular country.

Original :: telephone sales skills are you asking